Misalliance

old lady’s gone, I’ll tell you something, Lord Summerhays. If you study men who’ve made an enormous pile in business without being keen on money, you’ll find that they all have a slate off. The Governor’s a wonderful man; but he’s not quite all there, you know. If you notice, he’s different from me; and whatever my failings may be, I’m a sane man. Erratic: that’s what he is. And the danger is that some day he’ll give the whole show away. Lord Summerhays Giving the show away is a method like any other method. Keeping it to yourself is only another method. I should keep an open mind about it. Johnny Has it ever occurred to you that a man with an open mind must be a bit of a scoundrel? If you ask me, I like a man who makes up his mind once for all as to what’s right and what’s wrong and then sticks to it. At all events you know where to have him. Lord Summerhays That may not be his object. Bentley He may want to have you, old chap. Johnny Well, let him. If a member of my club wants to steal my umbrella, he knows where to find it. If a man put up for the club who had an open mind on the subject of property in umbrellas, I should blackball him. An open mind is all very well in clever talky-talky; but in conduct and in business give me solid ground. Lord Summerhays Yes: the quicksands make life difficult. Still, there they are. It’s no use pretending they’re rocks. Johnny I don’t know. You can draw a line and make other chaps toe it. That’s what I call morality. Lord Summerhays Very true. But you don’t make any progress when you’re toeing a line. Hypatia Suddenly, as if she could bear no more of it. Bentley: do go and play tennis with Johnny. You must take exercise. Lord Summerhays Do, my boy, do. To Johnny. Take him out and make him skip about. Bentley Rising reluctantly. I promised you two inches more round my chest this summer. I tried exercises with an indiarubber expander; but I wasn’t strong enough: instead of my expanding it, it crumpled me up. Come along, Johnny. Johnny Do you no end of good, young chap. He goes out with Bentley through the pavilion. Hypatia throws aside her work with an enormous sigh of relief. Lord Summerhays At last! Hypatia At last. Oh, if I might only have a holiday in an asylum for the dumb. How I envy the animals! They can’t talk. If Johnny could only put back his ears or wag his tail instead of laying down the law, how much better it would be! We should know when he was cross and when he was pleased; and that’s all we know now, with all his talk. It never stops: talk, talk, talk, talk. That’s my life. All the day I listen to mamma talking; at dinner I listen to papa talking; and when papa stops for breath I listen to Johnny talking. Lord Summerhays You make me feel very guilty. I talk too, I’m afraid. Hypatia Oh, I don’t mind that, because your talk is a novelty. But it must have been dreadful for your daughters. Lord Summerhays I suppose so. Hypatia If parents would only realize how they bore their children! Three or four times in the last half hour I’ve been on the point of screaming. Lord Summerhays Were we very dull? Hypatia Not at all: you were very clever. That’s what’s so hard to bear, because it makes it so difficult to avoid listening. You see, I’m young; and I do so want something to happen. My mother tells me that when I’m her age, I shall be only too glad that nothing’s happened; but I’m not her age; so what good is that to me? There’s my father in the garden, meditating on his destiny. All very well for him: he’s had a destiny to meditate on; but I haven’t had any destiny yet. Everything’s happened to him: nothing’s happened to me. That’s why this unending talk is so maddeningly uninteresting to me. Lord Summerhays It would be worse if we sat in silence. Hypatia No it wouldn’t. If you all sat in silence, as if you were waiting for something to happen, then there would be hope even if nothing did happen. But this eternal cackle, cackle, cackle about things in general is only fit for old, old, old people. I suppose it means something to them: they’ve had their fling. All I listen for is some sign of it ending in something; but just when it seems to be coming to a point, Johnny or papa just starts another hare; and it all begins over again; and I realize that it’s never going to lead anywhere and never going to stop. That’s when I want to scream. I wonder how you can stand it. Lord Summerhays Well, I’m old and garrulous myself, you see. Besides, I’m not here of my own free will, exactly. I came because you ordered me to come. Hypatia Didn’t you want to come? Lord Summerhays My dear: after thirty years of managing other people’s business, men lose the habit of considering what they want or don’t want. Hypatia Oh, don’t begin to talk about what men do, and about thirty years experience. If you can’t get off that subject, you’d better send for Johnny and papa and begin it all over again. Lord Summerhays I’m sorry. I beg your pardon. Hypatia I asked you, didn’t you want to come? Lord Summerhays I did not stop to consider whether I wanted or not, because when I read your letter I knew I had to come. Hypatia Why? Lord Summerhays Oh come, Miss Tarleton! Really, really! Don’t force me to call you a blackmailer to your face. You have me in your power; and I do what you tell me very obediently. Don’t ask me to pretend I do it of my own free will. Hypatia I don’t